A WOMAN says an allegation she seriously assaulted a schoolgirl with a candlestick is “absurd”.

Aneliese Buchanan is accused of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to the alleged victim by leaving her with a gash on the top of her head.

The 38-year-old from Newport is on trial facing a separate charge of assaulting another girl by strangling her with clingfilm and stabbing her with a screwdriver.

Her barrister Emma Harris asked Buchanan about the first allegation: “The prosecution suggests that you hit her with a candlestick on that day. Did that happen?”

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The defendant replied: “No. Categorically no.”

Miss Harris put it to Buchanan of the second complaint: “Did you ever hit her with a hammer, candlestick or screwdriver?”

She answered: “No.”

The defendant also denied she had strangled her with clingfilm.

Buchanan said in her evidence that she suffers from a number of medical conditions and told the jury her sight is "severely impaired".

She added: “I have a bad heart as well. I take blockers for it. My heart rate can become erratic.”

Opening the case earlier this month, Heath Edwards, prosecuting, said: “(The first complainant) attended the Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran with a wound to the top of her head.

“It was a wound that she blamed the defendant for causing after hitting her on the head with a candlestick.”

Mr Edwards said the injury was “a gash on the top of her head”.

Buchanan later claimed that the girl’s wound had been self-inflicted and caused with a knitting implement.

Referring to the second complainant, the prosecutor said: “She said she strangled her with a roll of cling film, hit her with a hammer, stabbed her with a screwdriver and jumped on her head when she was on the floor.

“The allegations, the defendant says, are being made up.

“And so the principle issue for you, ladies and gentlemen, in relation to counts one to four to four, the allegations of violence, is did these acts of violence actually take place as the complainants say they did?

“Or are they not telling you the truth as the defendant says?”

Buchanan is also accused of perverting the course of justice over claims she contacted the first complainant and asked her to “retract” the allegations.

The defendant, of Margaret Avenue, has pleaded not guilty to causing grievous bodily harm, grievous bodily harm, assault and perverting the course of justice.

The trial at Cardiff Crown Court continues.